N00802:1005
The truly blessed man
The truly blessed man: or, The way to be happy here, and for ever: being the substance of divers sermons preached on, Psalm XXXII. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. N.E. ; [Five lines from Isaiah]
printed by B. Green for Michael Perry, 1700
Sermon › Doctrine 3: God to be sought in a finding time. DOCTRINE. III.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. Doth the Spirit strive with any of you? Take heed that you do not resist him; are there any inward strivings of Conviction, shakings of contrition, sharp prickings of compunction, secret persuasions to hearken to the concerns of your Souls? Doth the Word take hold of you, awaken Conscience, and put you upon serious thinking? These are inward addresses of the Spirit, and say he is near, be sure to take the opportunity; put him not off; To quicken you, Consider,
3. Doth the Spirit strive with any of you? Take heed that you do not resist him; are there any inward strivings of Conviction, shakings of contrition, sharp prickings of compunction, secret perswasions to hearken to the concerns of your Souls? Doth the Word take hold of you, awaken Conscience, and put you upon serious thinking? These are inward addresses of the Spirit, and say he is near, be sure to take the opportunity; put him not off; To quicken you, Consider,
1. If he should cease thus to strive, the means would do you no good. He hath chosen the means to come in, and apply his grace to our Souls, and we are diligently to attend on them for this end: ⟨p. 351⟩and the neglect of so doing is an affront put upon the Spirit. However, all the saving efficacy of it depends on his influencing them: if he apply them with power, we are savingly benefited by them, if he withhold that from them, there will be no such blessed effect flow from them; it is not Pauls Planting, &c. God often affords as eminent means to a declining people, as to those that flourish in a profession: but they have not the same effect, because he comes not in them with life; if then you send him away, you hinder your own profiting. What a sad remark was that of Moses? Deut. 29.2, 3, 4.
1. If he should cease thus to strive, the means would do you no good. He hath chosen the means to come in, and apply his grace to our Souls, and we are diligently to attend on them for this end: